Pope marks birthday with homeless

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VATICAN CITY Three homeless men, one of them carrying his dog, helped Pope Francis celebrate his 77th birthday Tuesday, joining him for Mass and breakfast and presenting him with a bouquet of sunflowers.

The men live on a street outside the Vatican's walls and were invited by the Holy See official in charge of alms-giving to attend the Mass that Francis celebrates daily at his hotel on Vatican City grounds. The Vatican said Francis also invited his household help to join him, and he spoke of each person in his homily.

Francis, who is making history as one of the most informal and down-to-earth popes, struck a modest note as he reflected on people's roles in the world. “Let the Lord write our history,” he said in his homily.

After Mass, all ate breakfast with Francis in the hotel dining room.

The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano reported that the men are from the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia.

Also Tuesday, Francis declared the 16th-century Jesuit Pierre Favre a saint, bypassing the Vatican's typical procedures to honor the first recruit of Jesuit founder St. Ignatius Loyola.

Favre, who lived from 1506 to 1546, met Ignatius while they were college roommates in Paris along with another future Jesuit, Francis Xavier. Favre later spent most of his ministry preaching Catholicism in Germany and elsewhere.

Francis, the first Jesuit pope, recently spoke about the importance of Favre's message of dialogue, “even with his opponents.”

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